1 Prologue

It was little more than five miles from the boarder between the Kingdom or Erandol and the Kingdom of Almor, but that was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on the other side of the immense wall separating the two kingdoms. Not a cloud in the sky over Erandol, but here, in the Almor there was a clouded sunset. A steady rain had just begun to fall, building faster than the tents could be raised.

The midwife pulled her cloak tighter against her neck as she bend over the woman again. Raindrops spilling from her nose into the upturned face below her. Her breath blew out a cloud of white steam in the frigid air, but there was no answering billow of air from the patient.

The midwife sighed and slowly straighten up, that single movement telling the watchers everything they needed to know. The young woman that staggered into the forest camp was dead, only holding onto life long enough to pass on the baby at her side. But even as the midwife picked up the pathetically small form from the side of the dead woman, it shuddered one it's wrappings, and was still.

"The babe, too?" Asked one of the waters. a middle aged man whom wore the runic mark of of the Church of Sto'ric drawn in wood ash freshly upon his brow. "There shall be no need for baptism then."

His hand went up to brush the baptismal rune from his forehead, then suddenly stopped. A pale white hand hand gripped his wrist and forced it down in a single swift motion.

"Be at peace!" Said a calm voice. "I wish you no ill will."

The white hand released its grip and the speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The others watched him without welcome, the hands that had half sketched the tunic marks or gone to bowstrings and hilts, did not relax.

The man walked towards the bodies and looked down upon them. Then he turned to face the watchers, pushing back his hood to reveal the face of someone who had taken paths far from sunlight, for his skin was a white as death's own bones.

"I am called Watcher," he spoke, as his words sent ripples through the people about him, as if he had cast a large and heavy stone into a pool of stagnant water. "There will be a baptism tonight."

The Sto'ric Priest looked down on the bundle in the midwife's hands, and said: "But the child is dead, Watcher. We are but travelers, our lives lived under the sky, and it is often harsh. We know death well, lord."

"Not like I," replied Watcher, smiling so his bone-white skin crinkled at the corners of his mouth and drew back from his equally white teeth. "I say the child has not yet crossed over into death."

The man tried to meet the Watcher's gaze, but faltered and looked away at his fellow travelers. None moved or made any sign, till a woman said, "So, it's easily done. Sign the child, Marcus. We will make a new camp at Lafiet. Join us when it's done."

The Sto'ric Priest inclines his head in agreement as the others moved away reluctantly to pack their half made camp. They were filled with a greater reluctance to stay near the Watcher, his name was one of secrets, and unspoken fears.

When the Midwife went to lay the child down and leave, Watcher spoke: "Wait, you will be needed tonight."

The midwife looked down on the babe, and saw that it was a boy child, save for its stillness, he could be merely sleeping. She had heard of Watcher, if the child could live... warily she picked up the boy again and held him out to Marcus.

"If Sto'ric's will does not-" begain Marcus, but Watcher held up a pale hand and interrupted

"Let us see what Sto'ric wills."

The priest looked at the child again and sighed. He then took a small bottle from a pouch and held it aloft, calling out a chant that was the beginning of a Sto'ric Prayer; it listed all things that lived or grew, once lived, or would live again. The bonds that Sto'ric held that tied them all together. As he spoke, a light grew from within the bottle, pulsing with the rhythm of the prayer. Then the prayer was finished. Marcus touched the bottle to the earth, then the rune of wood ash on his forehead, and then upended it over the boy child.

A great flash lit over the surrounding wood as the glowing liquid splashed over the child's head and the priest called: "By Sto'ric, he of she who binds all things, we name thee-"

Normally, the parents of the child would then speak the name. Here, only Watcher spoke, and he said:

"Cymon."

As he uttered the words, the wood ash on the priest's forehead disappeared, and slowly formed on the child's. Sto'ric had accepted the child.

"But... but he is dead!" exclaimed the priest, gingerly touching his forehead to make sure the ash was truly gone.

He had no answer, for the midwife was staring across the fire at Watcher, and Watcher was staring at - nothing. His eyes reflected the dancing flames, but did not see them.

Slowly, a chilled most began to rise from his body, spreading towards the man and the midwife, who scuttled to the other side of the fire - wanting to get away, but now too afraid to run.

He could hear the child crying, which was good. If he had gone beyond the first gate he could not guarantee to bring him back without subsequently dilution of his soul.

The current was strong here at the beginning of death. But he knew this branch of death well, wading past pools and eddies that hopes to drag him deeper into death. Already he could feel the waters leaching his spirit, but Watcher's will was stronger, so they took only the color nothing more.

Watcher paused to listen, and hearing the crying diminish he moved faster forward. Perhaps he was already at the gate, about to pass onward deeper.

This first gate was the veil of mist that poured into a larger silent river beyond. Watcher hurried towards it, and then stopped. The boy had not yet passed through, but only because something had caught him and picked him up. Standing there, looming up out of the blackening waters, was a shadow darker then the waters.

It was several feet higher than Watcher, and marsh pale lights were burning where one might expect to see eyes. A stench rolled off the creature of pure carrion - a warm stench that masked the chill of river.

Watcher advanced on the creature slowly, watching it as it held the boy loosely in the crook of a shadowed arm. The baby was asleep now, but restless, and it squirmed towards the creature, seeking a mother's breast. The creature only held the him away from itself, as of the babe were hot or caustic.

Slowly, Watcher drew a small, silver ring from his belt and slipped it on as he raised his hand. But the shadow creature held the baby a lofted and spoke in slithery liquid voice.

"A spirit of your spirit, Watcher Wraith. You can't hurt me while I hold him. Perhaps... I shall take him back with me beyond the gates... after all his mother has already gone down quite a few of them herself."

Watcher frowned, lowering his hand. "You have a new form, Lok. And it would seem you are wholly on this side of the first gate. Who has been foolish enough to help a monster like you this far?"

Smiling widely Watcher caught a glimpse of fires burning deeply inside the creatures mouth. "Oh, one of the usual callers," he crooned. "But unskilled as most. She didn't realize it would be in the nature of an exchange. Her life, alas, was not enough for me to pass the last portal. But now, you have come to help me, as you say Watcher."

"I, who bond and chained you beyond the Ninth? Mounted you within Sto'ric's own field?"

"Yes," whispered Lok. "The irony does not, I would think, escape you. But... if you want the child..."

He made as if to throw the baby into the stream and, with that jerk, woke him. Immediately, he began to scream and cry. His little fists reaching out to gather up the shadowy stuffs of Lok's own being. Lok cried out, tired to detach the boy, but the tiny hands held tightly and He was forced to overuse his strength and threw the baby from himself. The boy child landed, squalling, and was instantly caught up in the flow of the blackening water, but Watcher lunges forward, snatched him from both the river and Lok's grasping hands.

Stepping back, he threw up his hand wearing the small ring turned it towards Lok. A muffled sound reverberated that made Lok flinch and fall backwards into the veil of mist that was the first gate.

"Some fool will only bring me back Watcher, and then..." he cried out, as the river took him deeper into death. The waters swirled and gurgled only to resume their steady flow.

Watcher stared at the gate for a time, then sighed as he balanced the child to remove the ring and place it back into its pouch. He looked at his son whom he held in his arms. He stared back at him, light eyes matched those of his mother's. Already the color had been drained from his skin. Nervously, Watcher laid a hand across the brand on his forehead and felt the flow of his spirit within. The runic mark had held firm and kept his life contained when the river should have drained it. It was his life-spirit that had so burned Lok.

He smiled up at him and gurgled a little, and Watcher felt a smile coloring the corner of his mouth. Still smiling, he turned and begain the long wade back up death's first river, to the portal would return them both to their living bodies.

The baby wailed a scant second before Watcher's eyes refocused. So that the midwife was already halfway around the dying fire, ready to pick him up. Frost crackled in the ground and icicles hung from Watcher's nose. He wipes them off with a sleeve and leaned over the child, much as any anxious father does after birth.

"How's the babe?" He asked, the midwife stared at him wonderingly, for the dead child was now loudly alive and deathly as white as he.

"As you hear, my lord," she answered. "He is very well. It is perhaps a little to cold for him -"

Watcher gestures at the fire and spoke a word, it roared into life, the frost melted at once, the raindrops sizzling into steam.

"That will do till morning," said Watcher. "Then I shall take him to my house. I shall have need of a nurse. Will you come?"

The midwife hesitated and looked to the priest, who still lingered in the far side of the fire. He refused to meet her gaze and she looked down once more at the little boy bawling in her arms

"You are... you are..." whispered the midwife.

"A necromancer?" Scratching his cheek. "Of sorts. I loved the woman who lies here. She would have loved if she had loved another, but she did not. Cymon is our child. Can you not see the resemblance?"

The midwife looked at him as he leant forward and took Cymon from her, rocking him against his chest. The baby quietened and within a few seconds was asleep.

"Yes," she said. "I will come with you, and look after Cymon. But you must find a wet-nurse..."

"And I say much else besides," me mused. "But my house is not a place for -"

The Sto'ric Priest cleared his throat, and stepped around the fire. "If you seek a man who knows a little of Wyld magic," he said hesitantly, "I should wish to serve, for I have seen Sto'ric's will at work in you, lord, though I am fearful to leave my fellow wanderers."

"Perhaps... you will not have to," replied Watcher, smiling as a sundown thought. "I wonder if your leader will object to two new members joining your band. For my work means I must travel, and there is no part of Almor that I have no visited, at one time or another."

"Your work, my lord?" Asked the midwife, shivering a little though it was no longer cold.

"Yes," replied Watcher. "While I am a necromancer, I'm not the common kind. Where others of the art wish to raise the dead, I lay them back to rest. And those that will not rest, I bind... or at least try to. I am Watcher..."

He looked at the baby again, and added with a gentle smile and a note of surprise, "Father of Cymon."